There is, btw, an XML Data Model: http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-datamodel/
All the best, Ashok
Elliotte Harold wrote:
>
> Mark Birbeck wrote:
>
>> The first thing I would do is prise apart the syntax and the infoset.
>> I don't see any reason why the underlying representation of a DOM
>> can't be taken as given, even if we fiddle around to remove the need
>> for prefix-explosion in the mark-up.
>>
>
> Cart: let me just attach you to the front of the horse here.
>
> Syntax is the only thing we have. Syntax is the only thing XML brings
> to the table. There is no common data model for XML, and fundamentally
> there can't be one. Syntax is interoperable across domains, operating
> systems, organizations, and countries. Data models don't usually
> survive the transition from one application to the next, much less the
> transition from one computer to another, or one organization to another.
>
> And of all the things XML has brought to the table, about the only one
> I can think of that is worse than namespaces is DOM. It's ugly,
> inconsistent, memory-intensive, slow, thoroughly despised by users,
> and frankly just hideous.
>
> For a spec designed for long-term storage and wire transport, any
> object model is a non-starter. It is flat-out impossible to put
> objects on the wire. Serialized objects are an oxymoron, a
> self-contradicting fantasy. They are the perpetual motion machine of
> computing. There's a reason object serialization schemes have failed
> time and again, and it's not just because we haven't invented the
> right one yet. Defining XML in terms of any object model would not
> just be a bad idea. It would be impossible.
>
> (This is not to the say, by the way, that there might not be better
> syntaxes than the one we've labeled XML. There are almost certainly
> are. But any such improved syntax would have to be just that: syntax,
> not an object model.)
>
> XML did prise apart syntax and the infoset. That's was one of its most
> significant innovations, perhaps its most significant. The infoset is
> not a core feature of XML. It is simply one understanding of an actual
> XML document, not the understanding of a document. The infoset may or
> may not be useful in any given application and developers are free to
> use it or not as they see fit. The genius of XML was precisely in
> defining an interoperable syntax while allowing many different models
> of that syntax. To define a single model while allowing many different
> syntaxes is precisely the opposite of what XML is about, and why XML
> has succeeded.
>